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Post by Commander Benson on May 10, 2022 10:05:29 GMT -5
Unless the publisher sees talent walking out the door, highly disengaged, etc. It's a competitive pool of talent out there, and the editor's job is also about retaining, developing, and engaging talent. You're right, there is a competitive pool of talent, with plenty of people eager to step up. If Big Name writer or artist threatens the editor with "Let me write/draw the book the way I want to, or else I walk," the editor's response should be, "There's the door." Because there's plenty of talent waiting in the wings eager to take that slot, replacement talent who will willingly be developed and engaged by the editor. A truth of leadership is that, if responsibility is placed on someone, then he must also have commensurate authority. That should be obvious. We've all had bosses. How effective would that boss be if he had no power to enforce his policies or the rules? As the publisher, I have to back my editor. He's the one I've made responsible for the success of the magazine. And he can only accomplish that if he knows I will support his authority. |
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2022 10:19:19 GMT -5
Unless the publisher sees talent walking out the door, highly disengaged, etc. It's a competitive pool of talent out there, and the editor's job is also about retaining, developing, and engaging talent. You're right, there is a competitive pool of talent, with plenty of people eager to step up. If Big Name writer or artist threatens the editor with "Let me write/draw the book the way I want to, or else I walk," the editor's response should be, "There's the door." Because there's plenty of talent waiting in the wings eager to take that slot, replacement talent who will willingly be developed and engaged by the editor. I think it may depend a bit. If someone has been given a fair shot at following the direction they've been given, and isn't going to be professional about it, sure, it may be time to part ways. But it can often be a bit murkier than that. Are they a particularly strong talent that might find a home with a competitor who makes it work better? The revolving door of talent is not an uncommon occurrence. And in that scenario it can put the editor back in focus...did they make the right call, or could they have come up with some meaningful compromise? It can go either way. It could also be that you have an editor with terrible people skills who seemed like the right choice initially, but in practice doesn't quite cut it. My point being, I don't think "blanket empowerment" often plays out that way in practice. |
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Post by Commander Benson on May 10, 2022 10:19:41 GMT -5
I'll maybe say it a different way in terms of the leadership analogy. In my career, I've led people for over 20 years, and some of those people I lead are themselves leaders of people. They need to know they have my support and are empowered to make leadership decisions. Nobody appreciates a "micromanager". And if they are talented at what they do, that empowerment can lead to them doing their best. Precisely! I couldn't have phrased it better. And in the case of publishing comics, the barometer for how well the editor is doing is how well his magazines sell. If they are flying off the spinner racks, no problem. I've got a good editor. But, if they aren't selling well, and I've given the editor enough time to turn it around, but he has not---then it's time to get a new editor. The specific reasons why the magazines aren't selling---bad art, poor writing, poor management skills---are immaterial. Those were issues the editor should have addressed, and he had my authority to do so. So the editor is responsible for the books failing to sell. |
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Post by chaykinstevens on May 10, 2022 16:04:50 GMT -5
It's been a while since I last re-read MoKF but from memory, I'm not sure I'd agree that the series was ripe for cancellation from a creative standpoint. I thought there was some really great stuff during the Zeck era - granted, the best of it happened after Gene Day joined the team as inker, but I wouldn't dismiss the earlier part of Zeck's stint on the book, particularly the Bruce Patterson-inked issues. And then, as you say, when Day took over as penciller, there were some truly classic comics that could stand with the best of the Gulacy era. Yes, the loss, the tragic loss of Gene Day was a terrible blow, but it was so unexpected and the book was cancelled so soon afterwards, that I think it's very hard to say what might have happened if it hadn't been cancelled. We don't even know who the artist would have been, do we? Or do we? I'm not really up on these things, to tell the truth. I will say that I thought Moench had painted himself into a bit of a corner as far as Fu Manchu was concerned, so that might have been an obstacle going forward. But the book had gone through ups and downs before withoutever making me feel that I wanted to stop reading, let alone that it should be cancelled. Even during relative misfires like the War-Yore storyline with Jim Craig, or the inconsistent artwork (I think mostly due to the ever changing inkers) in the early Zeck issues, it remained an important comic for me - a credit to Moench, because Gulacy's departure was a huge loss that would have killed most series. Maybe after Day's unexpected death the series would have gone through a similar period of inconsistency and eventually recovered: we just don't know. Day was taken off MOKF after #120 - according to Shooter this was because the series was going to be cancelled. Day must have known that would be his final issue, as Rufus Carter's car says "FAREWELL" on its number plate in one panel. Day then pencilled Star Wars #68 & 69 and had pencilled half of Indiana Jones #3 when he died. Shooter said the royalties on these would have quadrupled Day's income, but Day doesn't seem to have cared too much about money, as he intended to reunite with Moench at DC on Batman, which in those days was selling fewer copies than MOKF. Detective Comics #527 by Moench and Dan Day with a cover by Gene was sadly the closest we got to that. Someone in the comments section on Shooter's blog posted that Denny O'Neil tried to bring back Jim Starlin to kill off Shang-Chi, but I don't know if there's any truth in that. |
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Post by chaykinstevens on May 10, 2022 16:42:30 GMT -5
When JM DeMatteis was writing Captain America, he wanted to have Steve Rogers renounce violence, then be killed by Jack Monroe and replaced as Cap by Black Crow, a native American character who had been introdiced in CA #292. DeMatteis' final issue, #300, seems to have been tampered with, as the plot was credited to him, but the script to Michael Ellis, whose only other credit was on JLA #255, when DeMatteis was considering quitting writing superhero comics. Wally Lombego must have been busy. Captain America was only 20th in the list of Marvel's 1983 best sellers that commond linked to above, just above Dazzler. DeMatteis reworked the idea in 2009 for IDW as The Life and Times of Savior 28, which he says is his favourite of the superhero comics he wrote.
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Post by badwolf on May 10, 2022 16:48:51 GMT -5
When JM DeMatteis was writing Captain America, he wanted to have Steve Rogers renounce violence, then be killed by Jack Monroe and replaced as Cap by Black Crow, a native American character who had been introdiced in CA #292. DeMatteis' final issue, #300, seems to have been tampered with, as the plot was credited to him, but the script to Michael Ellis, whose only other credit was on JLA #255, when DeMatteis was considering quitting writing superhero comics. Wally Lombego must have been busy. Captain America was only 20th in the list of Marvel's 1983 best sellers that commond linked to above, just above Dazzler. DeMatteis reworked the idea in 2009 for IDW as The Life and Times of Savior 28, which he says is his favourite of the superhero comics he wrote. I wonder if he got the name from one of my favorite Monty Python episodes.
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Post by commond on May 10, 2022 17:14:15 GMT -5
I was just paraphrasing Shooter. I doubt he could recall the exact figures, and he probably has Spider-Woman and Dazzler mixed up. Some sources claim the licensing fee for Fu Manchu was a factor in the decision to cancel the book, but who knows. EDIT: All right, someone's done the research about 1983 already -- trendingpopculture.com/best-selling-marvel-comics-of-1983-30-years-later/ Only Uncanny X-Men was selling over 300k an issue, so Shooter is either over-selling how well Marvel was doing at the time, or he didn't make his point very clearly. Perhaps the big-wigs wanted more books selling at X-Men levels. The politics behind which books were cancelled, and which received a lifeline, must have been fascinating. I found the exact quote from Shooter about MoKF's sales: I'm not actually sure what Shooter meant by line average. I may have misinterpreted it. In another interview, Shooter says that MoTF was selling about 30,000 copies above the break even point. |
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Post by berkley on May 11, 2022 14:18:04 GMT -5
I wonder how differently the practice of editing comics might work at independents like Image or Dark Horse compared to Marvel/DC: would we be having the same kind of conversation in that case?
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Post by MDG on May 11, 2022 15:12:58 GMT -5
I wonder how differently the practice of editing comics might work at independents like Image or Dark Horse compared to Marvel/DC: would we be having the same kind of conversation in that case? Well, I would think that since independents are more often publishing creator-owned characters, the "creatives" are definitely taking the lead and the editor is more like a book editor, providing guidance and keeping an eye on scheduling and production. Unless it's a licensed property, where the editor has a level of approval above them that has to be satisfied and may have veto over what an artist or writer want to do. |
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2022 15:54:47 GMT -5
I wonder how differently the practice of editing comics might work at independents like Image or Dark Horse compared to Marvel/DC: would we be having the same kind of conversation in that case? I wonder how differently the practice of editing comics might work at independents like Image or Dark Horse compared to Marvel/DC: would we be having the same kind of conversation in that case? Well, I would think that since independents are more often publishing creator-owned characters, the "creatives" are definitely taking the lead and the editor is more like a book editor, providing guidance and keeping an eye on scheduling and production. Unless it's a licensed property, where the editor has a level of approval above them that has to be satisfied and may have veto over what an artist or writer want to do. I think the issue stems from the fact that Marvel and DC cannot decide what they are. Are they publishers or are they content creation studios? The needs of those two things do not always line up and when you try to be both, especially when the same people are making decisions for both sides of the coin, you start to have a divide and a conflict of interest. The indies, for the most part, have gone the publisher route and left the content creation to creators, but Marvel and DC continue to try to wear both hats and they don't both fit well, especially when both are trying to sit on the same head. And most of the time, with Marvel and DC, when the two come in conflict, it has been the need of the publishing house not the need of the creative studio that has won out and the needs of the publisher have dictated to the studio side what and how to create, much to the chagrin of a number of creators over the years that have driven them elsewhere. For a time, there were no other options and if creators wanted to work in the field of comics they had to suck it up and do what publishing wanted, but you see lots of creators over the years leaving because they did not want to do so-creators going to animation like Ploog and others, some going into advertising, some exploring self-publishing (do you think Gil Kane would have been a prolific cover artist for Marvel in the 70s if the market had been there for his self-publishing efforts like Savage and Black Mark), some try to break into strip work for the syndicates, and some even left the creative field altogether. With the advent of the direct market and new avenues for creators, some began to explore other avenues for their efforts rather than deal with the split personality of the big 2. Some didn't find the financial reward they wanted and came back to the big2 grind, but left again when the Image revolution opened up other doors again. You see now a cycle of creators either making a name for themselves at the big two then leaving to pursue their own stuff at other publishers who do not try to wear both hats, or splitting their time playing by the rules to collect better page rates at Marvel and Dc but saving their "A" stuff to pursue other places where they do not have to deal with a company trying to be both publisher and content creator and keep most of the pie for themselves and not the actual creators. As long as Marvel and DC try to wear both hats, this is going to continue to be an issue-what comes first the needs of the creative process or the needs of the publishing house? And if the business model of both Marvel and DC call for the publisher needs to be paramount, from dictating content, to forcing organized events and cross-overs to maintaining ownership and media rights of every IP they publish with little to no creator participation. So situations like the Shooter/Moench issue are going to happen ad infinitum, its inherent in the structure of how Marvel and DC are set up as both publisher and content creator. And the creator is going to lose just about every time. Business as a publisher will triumph over art as a creator in this set up. The Marvel/DC set up exists as a hierarchy in structure. Traditional publishers, and most indy comics publishers who take inspiration from that model, exist more as a client/partnership model. The creator creates but needs someone to bring the product to market, which is where the publisher comes in. The publisher has the infrastructure to bring product to market, but needs content/product to do so, hence where the creator comes in, and their mutual interest is in keeping both sides happy and the flow of goods to market. It might seem that having both sides in one house would streamline things, but it doesn't. It negates the equal partnership of the client relationship and creates an unequal hierarchy of boss-employee and also negates the mutually beneficial need dynamic. The creator works not to get product to market, but for a paycheck and doesn't benefit if the product is successful in the market. Their part is done and their remuneration happens whether the product gets to market or not. The publisher side doesn't care about the quality of product or whether the creator is happy creating it, only that it gets to market and sells well there (and there is little correlation between quality and sales in comics in particular or the entertainment field as a whole so that is not a factor in the equation from the publisher side of things, and on the creative side, creators get paid to get it done not to get it done well, it's not really a factor on that side of things either except for personal pride and that doesn't pay). It's a system designed to churn out product to meet deadlines and the creators are replaceable cogs in the machine. Any issues that arise will be solved in a manner that provides the least disruption to the process of the system, and that rarely means siding with the creatives. It doesn't matter if they are happy, it matters if they produce, they are employees not clients. Publishers who are not content creation studios however, have to keep their clients happy to ensure a flow of product, and if either side is unhappy, the client partnership can be dissolved and each can look for alternative elsewhere (creators take what they have already created to another publisher, publishers find other creators with content ready to go to market). In the combined content creator/publisher scenario, they can part ways, but creators cannot take already created content with them to shop around but the publishers can replace the creators with another to work on the content they already own. It's a different dynamic, and one that will often lead to discontent among the creators, who have limited recourses if/when it occurs, so we see situation like the Moench/Shooter conflict (or Englehart's creative differences, or the Kirby situations, or...) play out over and over again in that set up. And until Marvel and DC stop trying to be both (which is not likely to happen unless their corporate masters decide to take the publisher role away from them and contract it out leaving them only content creators-or vice versa), you will continue to have conflicts between creatives and publishing in house. -M |
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Post by codystarbuck on May 11, 2022 22:09:56 GMT -5
Mike Grell always used an editor, even on his creator-owned material, because he felt that self-editing was dangerous, for producing the best work. He had a great relationship with Mike Gold and brought him in to edit him on all of his post-Jon Sable works, like Shaman's Tears, Bar Sinister and Maggie the Cat.
Comico and Eclipse had strong editorial presences, in the persons of Diana Schutz and cat yronwode, respectively. They were very hands on, though their goal was always getting the best work from the talent. Schutz continued to edit Matt Wagner, at Dark Horse, though she was also his sister-in-law.
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Post by badwolf on May 12, 2022 9:21:49 GMT -5
I always enjoyed reading cat's editorials ("the penumbra").
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Post by codystarbuck on May 12, 2022 11:19:51 GMT -5
I always enjoyed reading cat's editorials ("the penumbra"). And cat could be just as controversial as editors at the Big Two. Alan Moore famously had problems with her, as did Chuck Austen, on Miracleman. Chuck Dixon had political idfferences; but, they worked well together, until he did the Afghanistan story, in Airboy, and they started butting heads. I think it was Between the Panels (Mike Richardson's book) that said she called up Diana Schutz or someone else (think it was Diana), and said she "slept with pigs," after a creator left Eclipse to go to Dark Horse (I think that was the progression, but I am pretty hazy on the specifics). Cat also had a tendency to push her politics in their comics, beyond just presenting a point of view, within a story, or highlighting an issue. At the same time, Eclipse was presenting a truly alternative point of view from the Big Two and many of the independents, when it came to politics, social issues and current events. |
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Post by Icctrombone on May 12, 2022 20:46:46 GMT -5
Mike Grell always used an editor, even on his creator-owned material, because he felt that self-editing was dangerous, for producing the best work. He had a great relationship with Mike Gold and brought him in to edit him on all of his post-Jon Sable works, like Shaman's Tears, Bar Sinister and Maggie the Cat. Comico and Eclipse had strong editorial presences, in the persons of Diana Schutz and cat yronwode, respectively. They were very hands on, though their goal was always getting the best work from the talent. Schutz continued to edit Matt Wagner, at Dark Horse, though she was also his sister-in-law. I recently heard a podcast that had Howard Chaykin. He said he hires an editor to do the books that he produces for Image. I don't think it's possible to truly edit your own work. You need outside eyes to help you see what you might not see. |
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